Virginia Tech Universit y Design AppreciationVirginia Tech

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Greg TewVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design Appreciation

Welcome to Design

Appreciation. My name is Greg

Tew, you can call me Greg. I’ve

been teaching this class since

2010. Since then, a lot has

happened in the world of

design, and in our lives, so

while this class is a story of

how design shapes our lives it

is also a story of constant

change. At the end of each

chapter, you and your

professor will have the chance

to discuss the story and the

ideas that lie ahead. Let’s get started with some first

thoughts about the class. What are your expectations?

That’s part of what we will talk about, but mostly the class is about the

many complex ways design influences our quality of life and how design

innovation must play a central role in our future. Two-hundred thousand

years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors spent time each day rounding up

the food they needed, doing some cooking and chores, and then they spent

Greg, will this class be like art appreciation, but focused on the

things we buy and architecture instead of paintings?

>>

View of the Rialto Bridge in Venice, built 400years ago. Venice is one of the most beautifullydesigned cities in the world. What are webuilding today that will be worthy ofpreservation and enjoyed by people 400years from now?

© S.Borisov/Shutterstock.com

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the rest of their time relaxing and enjoying life. At least that’s what

anthropologists have sorted out about our past so far.

Today, instead of personally satisfying our daily needs by hunting and

gathering food, finding water, or making clothes and shelter, most of us

get up every day and go to a job to make money to buy the things we need

and want. We moved from a life of self-sufficiency to a life completely

dependent on a complex system of cooperation with people we will never

know—people all around the world. The hunter-gatherer life was a life

focused on experiences—they had very few possessions. Our modern lives

are full of possessions created by millions of design efforts that almost by

magic produce an endless array of things we are encouraged to buy.

Hunter-gatherers roamed the earth. Today, we mostly settle in to a single

place for years surrounded by things from around the world that have been

mined, manufactured, boxed, shipped, and sold to us with the help of

various forms of clever marketing. Few of us ever give this picture of

modern life even a passing thought. We don't stop to consider if this life of

work to acquire possessions is the best life we can live. We don't bother to

question whether or not our lives are sustainable far into the future. Life

just is what it is and we play along.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t live as long as we do now, but some

of the people who spend their lives studying our past believe humans had it

right from the beginning—there is value in keeping life simple. Today, we

depend on a well-functioning, extremely complex, system to survive—if the

system fails we are in deep trouble. . . and here’s the strangest part:

nobody is in charge. The system either works, or it doesn’t, and sometimes

it doesn’t. We will look at the Great Depression and more recently at what

many have called the Great Recession of 2008 as examples of times when

our system didn’t work so well.

Let’s consider something as routine as taking this class.

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Make a mental list of things that had to work perfectly for you to buy this

textbook. To get you started, consider this example. Let’s say you need a

new shirt. You don’t grow the cotton, pick the cotton, spin the thread,

weave the cloth, design the garment, or sew it—you just go the store and

buy it. But to be able to buy it, you, or someone willing to buy the shirt for

you, had to do something someone else was willing to pay for—there were

hundreds of financial exchanges required for the shirt to exist. Buying the

shirt is the end result of those hundreds of decisions and exchanges. You

make the last design decision by buying the shirt that is best for you. That

is design appreciation, but so was everything else that had to happen.

So, do you have your list of design activities that had to happen to be able

to buy this book?

If you thought of the computer programmers, the credit card company, or

PayPal that allowed you to make the purchase online, that’s good. If you

thought of me, that’s good—I’ve designed a bunch of buildings in my life,

but writing a book is much harder. Before you could buy this particular

textbook, photography, video recording, digital word processing—all had to

be invented. It’s pretty incredible when you think about it. Every other

species on the planet is still living their version of hunting and gathering,

yet humans have innovated and accomplished amazing things. . . and sadly

a lot of destructive things. We will look at the good and the bad.

Other first thoughts about the class?

Will we talk about fashion in the class? I’ve spent a lot of time

working to become a fashion influencer on Instagram, but I’ve

never really thought about all the stuff that happens before the

designer creates the clothes. I have 20,000 followers on Instagram

and companies have started sending me free stuff—it’s pretty cool.

>>

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We will talk a bit about the apparel industry, but I mostly want everyone to

get tuned into the complete system shaping the lives we live—we all make

hundreds of design decisions every day—or they are made for us. . . think

about that. All of those decisions have a ripple effect on the lives of people

and the health of our planet. But back to your question. The power of social

media is one of the big design changes in our lives since I first developed

this course in 2010.

With 20,000 followers on Instagram I’m sure you already know more about

fashion than I do. There are a lot of people just like you earning a

substantial living as a social media influencer. The thing to remember

about Instagram is that it is free, so it exists thanks to advertising revenue.

I grew up in the world of television before the Internet existed, so it’s

amazing to see how quickly advertising dollars have moved from television,

to websites, and now to individuals on Instagram and YouTube. Advertising

money follows eyeballs, and right now, we are all looking at each other.

People who have gathered big groups of followers are very valuable to

advertisers. In 2010, when this class began, Instagram was only 6 weeks

old.2

When you are deciding what to buy—let’s say, the shirt we talked about—a

bunch of questions come to my mind. There’s the issue of style, durability,

and cost, but there are also ethical and environmental issues as well. It

takes a lot of natural resources to make clothing, the process can be very

polluting, and there are also concerns about the workers. As long as we

have had large-scale industry—starting in the mid-1800s—workers have

been exploited. And that sad practice is still alive and well. . . scratch that. .

. worker exploitation is still alive and very disturbing. Manufacturing

clothing was one of the original big businesses, and millions of textile

workers have suffered the effects of low pay, long hours, and horrible

working conditions. The design, manufacturing, marketing, and sales of

clothing is just one element of the complex web of life today. We need

clothes, but why can’t we buy clothes without the someone else suffering

1

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half way around the world? Here’s a little video from The Atlantic that

outlines this issue and shopping generally.

Next question?

That’s not a question, but you need a new phone!

That’s also a surprisingly complicated question. When it comes to phones,

what if I said the choice wasn’t just an iPhone or an Android, but instead

it’s an iPhone or an Android and as a bonus with the Android you get a free

Spring Break trip to Miami Beach or some other fun destination? We’ll talk

about that later in the course.

America's Dopamine-Fueled Shopping Addiction

I dropped my phone in the toilet.>>

Yeah, I’m sorry, that was too much information. Yes, I need a new

phone and I’m trying to decide between an iPhone or an Android.

Will we learn how to choose the best design option for phones and

all sorts of other things?

>>

© Halfpoint/Shutterstock.com © Twin Design/Shutterstock.com

iPhone or Android? How important is your phonein your life?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=404&v=_qWHJ29-s4U

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By the way, a few years ago, there was a big national news story about

workers at the Foxconn factory in China where they assemble iPhones. The

workers were committing suicide by jumping off the factory buildings. Let’s

take a look at that story.

The Foxconn suicides was a very sad story. It was also a design problem

with multiple solutions. The company executives chose the least expensive

design solution. They put up nets to make it harder for workers to kill

themselves. They also asked new employees to sign a pledge saying they

would not kill themselves. That solution ignored the underlying problem—

miserable working and living conditions. A better solution would have been

better pay and improved working conditions but that becomes a much

more complicated solution requiring new international trade policies and

means of enforcement. The easier and more immediate solution was to

make it harder for workers to kill themselves. Give that some thought, and

we will come back to this problem when we talk about the industrial

revolution.

Any other design thoughts on your mind?

Inside Apple’s “Suicide” Factories

3

I graduate in May. My roommates and I are sticking together after

graduation, they all want to rent this big house we found with a

pool and a hot tub, but it’s an hour in traffic to get to work. I’m

thinking it might be cool to live downtown, but it costs more with

less space. What’s that about?

>>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKfRksMbbSI

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Good question. Where we choose to live is a critical aspect of our quality of

life and one of the key components of the story that will unfold in this

course. We all have to have a place to live, but if I tell you how we ended up

with the options you described I’ll ruin the story. Let’s save the answer for

later.

I haven’t really answered any of your excellent questions, but at least you

now know more about the class. Let’s take one more question.

Those are some very generous options your grandfather is offering, but

once again the answer is potentially more complicated than choosing one

vehicle or another. We will spend time learning how to ask questions that

go beyond simply participating in our complex system of making, selling

and buying. Automobile companies spend billions every year trying to

© Larsek/Shutterstock.com © Roman Babakin/Shutterstock.com

A big house with a pool in the suburbs thatrequires a long commute or a townhouse in thecity close to work and restaurants?

My Grandfather wants to buy me a car for graduation. I like the

Ford F-150, but the Tesla Model 3 is wicked fast—which one would

you pick?

>>

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convince us our lives will be better, we will be sexier, and we will have more

fun if we simply buy their cars or trucks. As with the question about

clothing and establishing a personal style, a lot of people see their car as

an extension of their personality, but before you pick a car you should first

ask yourself, “Do I really need a car?” If the answer is yes, the next question

is “why do you need a car?” A lot of people your age are questioning the

usual way of life and choosing to skip car ownership.

This reminds me of a story.

I once had a student in this class say he couldn’t imagine how boring life

must have been without the Internet. That thought made perfect sense to a

20-year-old student. In his lifetime, the Internet has always been there. But

think about it, the Internet has only been around for about 25 years. If that

student talked to his parents and his grandparents about life before the

Internet they might convince him life was more interesting without it. The

Internet has changed our lives, for good and bad, and it changed our lives

very quickly. It’s amazing when you stop and think about it—in just a few

years, the Internet went from not existing to dominating our lives.

Let's go back to your grandfather's generous offer for a minute—cars were

your grandfather’s Internet. His generation was obsessed with cars, so for

your grandfather, giving you a car is his idea of the ultimate gift. But for

you, a car, even a free car, might be a burden. Time changes things. Does

anyone else have thoughts about cars in the twenty-first century?

All true, any other thoughts?

They’re expensive, even if the car is free you have to have

insurance, and pay for maintenance, parking, gas, taxes and other

things. I prefer Uber.

>>

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Absolutely. There are people who deny climate change is happening, and

many more don’t believe human activity is causing the change, but new

reports are being published all the time confirming WE are the reason our

climate is changing. When I first started teaching this course, you had to be

an avid reader of the news to know anything about this monumentally

important problem we all face. Today, climate scientists agree there is only

one in one million chance climate change is due to something other than

human activity. We have created a very serious problem we don’t want to

fix because to fix it we have to make changes in our lives. People generally

don’t like change unless it’s fun. Not many of us see climate change as an

opportunity for fun, but what if it was fun? What if we created a scenario

where the best life we could live was a life that stopped climate change?

That’s our challenge in this class. I think stopping climate change is the

most exciting and important design challenge of all time.

Back in 2010 I avoided the issue of

climate change until the very end of

the story I tell in this course. I had to

fully explain the story of humans for

the idea of climate change to seem

like a real point of concern. But since

2010, climate change has become a

dominant issue in the news. We must

respect it as a serious threat in our

lives, so I now start talking about this

issue on day one. Design is problem-

solving, climate change is scary but it

is also a very exciting design problem

that needs a desirable solution. There are millions of people working on

solutions, but we need billions to embrace the solutions being proposed. Is

There’s the concern about climate change. Automobile emissions

are a big part of that problem.

>>

4

Venice has �ooded when the tides wereparticularly high for many years, but the city issinking and sea levels are rising. The �oodingproblem is getting more serious every year.Will Venice have to be abandoned?

© PlusONE/Shutterstock.com

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the problem of climate change real and immediate? Well, here's an article

with thoughts on the subject.

Read the article and watch the videos in the article. You'll need to do this

throughout this course.

By now, you are either intrigued by where we are going in this course or

you might be disappointed that it will not be mostly about the aesthetics of

design. Let me clarify a couple of things. Learning how to design is a long

challenging process for most people. Design majors put in very long hours

working on their projects. Design is a labor of love—it’s hard and it’s slow.

This is not a class to teach you how to design, it’s about appreciating—

grasping the full implications of—design in our lives.

We could spend the semester discussing the aesthetic merits of one car or

another, one couture dress on the runway or another, or one tall building or

another. But to truly appreciate the power design has in our lives – for good

and for bad, we must look at the entire system shaping the world we live in.

We are at the end of our first day of class. To close it out, there is one more

important thing to know.

The essence of design is the development of ideas. In design school we

spend most of our time discussing ideas, and unlike math, in design there

is rarely one right answer. As a class about ideas, you might disagree with

some or even all of what is in this book and in this class. That’s OK. With

total sincerity, all points of view are welcome and encouraged. The

ideas and points of view in the book are my own, based on many years of

Final Call to Save the World from “Climate Catastrophe”

Design Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or That

5

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45775309

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Chapter 1 Quiz

research and study. But I do not claim to be the authority on all matters

that follow. I’m just trying to learn how to live in our changing world, and

with your thoughts and ideas, hopefully we’ll figure it out

together. Throughout this book there are embedded questions—take some

time and answer them. At the end of each chapter there is a discussion

question—post thoughtful, well-researched answers to those questions.

Read and comment on your classmates answers, and we will learn

together. Just be respectful of each other, and keep an open mind.

That’s it, here’s your first question to consider.

Canvas Discussion

In this first chapter we have talked about how our lives are shaped by a

complex system of interrelated design innovations that impact people here

in the United States and around the world—rich and poor alike. Before

starting this chapter, you may have thought of design mostly as an

aesthetic or technological endeavor. Design is those things, but design is

also deeply linked to our views on ethics, morality, and empathy for

others. Have you given much thought to the complete system of things

required for our modern lives to exist? What are your thoughts on the broad

definition of design presented in this first chapter of our semester

together?

Availability Start Date:

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https://canvas.vt.edu/courses/106581/discussion_topics/661580

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